Читать книгу The Kidnapping of Madame Storey and Other Stories (Madame Storey) - Footner Hulbert - Страница 8

We went right on to La Turbie in the car. Monsieur B. said we should find his chief of detectives on the spot. The road zigzagged endlessly back and forth across the face of the almost perpendicular mountain back of Monte Carlo. Though La Turbie almost overhangs the resort it is a half-hour's drive around those hairpin curves. We had no eye for the glorious views beneath us.

Like all the ancient villages thereabouts, La Turbie is almost a solid block of masonry tucked in the folds of the mountains. It is dominated by a huge ruined tower built by the Romans. Below the ancient part is a more modern esplanade ending in a sort of round bastion at the very edge of the cliffs. It was from this bastion that the body had been flung.

Mme. Storey had the car stopped some distance short of the end of the road, hoping to find the tracks of the car that had preceded us some eight hours before. But the pavement was hard and so many people had shuffled back and forth that all marks of tyres were obliterated.

Within the circular parapet at the end, a knot of people were gathered, peering over, discussing the affair. The chief of detectives joined us. Mme. Storey looked at him and looked at me ruefully. A worthy man! When Monsieur B. asked him what had developed he shrugged and spread his palms. Every soul in La Turbie had been asleep when it happened. Some perhaps had been wakened by the young man's cry, but they didn't know what had wakened them.

The village people drew back wonderingly at the sight of Mme. Storey. They suspected a tragic romance. We looked over—not at the glorious panorama of mountain and sea, with the red-roofed town two thousand feet below, but straight down where we could see a dark stain on the rocks at the foot of the cliff. I shivered. I can't say how far down it was, hundreds of feet.

They told us that the spot where the body had fallen was inaccessible from below, consequently, men had been lowered from the parapet to fetch it up. Indeed the ropes were still there, and the men who had gone down, telling the story to their neighbours over and over.

Mme. Storey said: "I will go down."

There was a chorus of remonstrances from the Frenchmen. She merely waited with a cold smile until they had talked themselves out.

"I will go for you," said the detective.

She shook her head. "I must use my own eyes."

In the end, of course she had her way. The men who manipulated the rope constructed a sort of sling for her. They helped her over the parapet, and presently I saw her swinging between rocks and sky, seated in the sling, clinging to the rope above her head with one hand and holding a cigarette in the other. It made me giddy, and I drew back. The village people were staring as at a marvel.

There was no accident. In half an hour they helped her over the parapet and she stood beside us safe and sound.

"Did you find anything?" asked the detective excitedly.

"No," she said coolly. The village people were listening and gaping.

When we drove away in the car she opened her hand and showed us a brown button. Clinging to it was a scrap of frayed woollen cloth of the same colour.

"When they took off his bonds there was a brief struggle," she said. "He caught hold of a button on the coat of one of his assailants and it came away in his hand. Observe that the cloth is of the finest quality, and that the button is sewed on with silk thread."

The French detective struck his fist into his palm. "I will find the wearer of that coat, Madame! You may leave it to me!"

"Quite!" she said dryly.

Back in the town we parted from our companions. The detective went off to set the usual machinery of the police in motion, while Mme. Storey and I went in search of the "Café des Arcades."

There was none of the Monte Carlo glitter about this place. The sort of shabby and inviting little resort in a side street, where French people love to sit by the hour, talking, playing dominoes, writing letters. At this time of day it was almost empty. When we sat down a waiter assiduously wiped the marble table in front of us. He was a young man with a friendly smile, and all the stored-up wisdom of the café waiter in his wary eyes.

"Are you Pierre?" asked Mme. Storey.

"But yes, Madame," he said, startled. "How do you know my name?"

"You signed it to a letter that you sent me last night."

"Yes! Yes!" he said. "And you are the lady? Ahh!"

"What do you know about the young man who gave you that letter?"

Pierre spread out his hands expressively. "I know nothing, Madame. He is a customer. He is generous. I do not know his name."

The proprietor was looking at us curiously from behind the bar, and Mme. Storey ordered aperitifs. Pierre flew to get them.

When he returned she asked: "What made the young man leave so quickly last night?"

"I do not know," said Pierre. "He show me fifty-franc note. He say quiet: 'Is there a way out at the back?' I say: 'Follow me.' I take him in the storeroom. He goes out through the window like a bird. Shove the letter in my hand. Say: 'Send it to suite "A," Hôtel de Paris.'"

"He was waiting here for a friend. Did his friend come?"

"Ah, yes! the mademoiselle. She often meet him here. Very pretty. She come and I say: 'Your gentleman is gone.' I didn't want to frighten her." He gave us a good description of the girl.

"You must have some idea of the danger that threatened him," said Mme. Storey.

Pierre shrugged. "Well, there were four young men waiting in the street," he said. "Afterwards they went away."

"Could you identify them if you saw them again?"

An expression of prudence came over the waiter's face. "Ah, no, Madame," he said quickly. "It is impossible. It was dark in the street. Their hats were pulled over their eyes."

"Pierre," said Mme. Storey gravely, "they got him!"

"Mon Dieu!" he said softly. "Is he dead?"

"He is dead!"

Pierre bustled away towards a table at a little distance, and fussed among a pile of magazines that lay upon it. He came back bringing one with his professional smile. This was for the watching proprietor's benefit. Pierre's eyes were full of tears.

"Voilà! L'Illustration, Madame," he said briskly. He leaned over and gave the table a swipe with his cloth. His back was turned towards his boss. "I have something else for you," he whispered. Digging into a pocket under his apron, he produced a tiny book in a pretty white binding. Mme. Storey slipped it out of sight.

"He give me that with the letter," whispered Pierre. "He say: 'If they get me you will hear of it, Pierre. If they get me I want the lady at the Hôtel de Paris to have this. If you hear nothing, throw it into the sea. It is dangerous to have on you.'"

Somebody called him, and he hustled away. He could give us no further help.

Under cover of the magazine, we examined the little book. To our astonishment it was—a dictionary! The slip cover was a handsome affair of vellum decorated with gold, green and red bands, but it held just a common little five-franc English-French dictionary. Every traveller knows them.

Mme. Storey ran over the pages hastily. They showed no marks of any sort.

"Just an ordinary dictionary!" I said disappointed.

"No!" she said thoughtfully. "He had some special reason for sending it." After a moment or two the explanation came to her. "This is the code book used by the gang in exchanging messages. It is not the first time that a dictionary has been used for that purpose. It will come in useful later."

We returned to the hotel. On the way Mme. Storey telegraphed to Philippe Grandet in Paris, asking him to come to Monte Carlo; a clever man who had worked for her on several former occasions. I had an uncomfortable feeling that we were being followed through the streets but I couldn't spot anybody. When I suggested to Mme. Storey that we ought to have protection, she merely shrugged.

"They would never dare murder us, Bella," she said lightly. "That would cause a sensation big enough to drive them out of business.... It would be one way of winning our case."

A busy day followed. Mme. Storey was in hourly consultation with the police. They were efficient enough as police go, but lacking in originality. I needn't put down everything we did, because in a case of this sort you have to start a hundred lines of investigation of which ninety-nine come to nothing. The chief of detectives did not find the coat from which the button had been torn; neither did he locate Raoul's little friend. Perhaps it was she who had betrayed Raoul.

During the afternoon Mr. James Wentworth Hawkins called up. He wished to know if Mme. Storey was still in Monte Carlo, and if she was available for dinner that night. The sound of his thick cruel voice over the wire made me shiver. Mme. Storey declined. Awfully sorry, she said, but she had a business engagement she couldn't get out of.

"Business in Monte Carlo!" he said with an unpleasant laugh. "That is uncommon!"

While the band was playing we sat down on the terrace for a breather, and there we had an odd experience. No handsome young man made eyes at us to-day, but one such sat down in a chair perhaps a hundred feet away, and my eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw him take a little white book with gold, green and red bands on the cover, and start reading it.

In a minute or two another young man approached him, showed him something in his hand—I had a glimpse of the red and green on white, and the first man made a somewhat lengthy communication. If we could have heard it! The second man strolled on, while the first remained sitting. Ten minutes later a third young man appeared, and the same performance was gone through with.

"The little book increases in importance," said Mme. Storey dryly. "It is their code, and it is also the badge by which they know each other!"

She had not said anything to the police about this book. "Shall you point out these men to the police?" I asked.

She shook her head. "The police will accomplish nothing. And it is up to you and I to complete a case before we strike."

When we returned to the hotel she looked at the little book thoughtfully. "It would be unlucky if they discovered that we possessed this," she said. "It is possible that they have spies in the hotel. Our rooms may be searched while we are out." She sealed it up, and posted it to herself in care of Poste Restante, Nice, where we could pick it up at any time.